The GameFan history thread

[Grave]

and Halverson splitting his already wigged out personality three or four different ways to review games ( E-Storm, Goo, and Skid? wtf?) were news to me.

Personally, I find it hilarious because I can remember when I was younger, looking at the portrait for Skid and wondering if it was actually based on someone, because with him and E. Storm, that'd make two fearsome mullets in one magazine. Pretty damn funny to find that they were written by the same guy all along.

This thread is amazing. I look forward to reading anything else that pops up.

[Hero]

talk about trips down memory lane.

I miss the Tav from time to time, but when I do visit everyone's idle. I think the last good talk I had was with Ven and Morrigan talking trash at each other, IP on the sidelines and talking to Knightmare about illustration.

Haven't talked to Dango in forever ;_;

And I think the only thing of menial interest I can add was the GameGO! attempt to go online. When the mag tanked, Haoh, Nick and some others were gonna try to take the content of the magazine and make it a website indstead. I remember being asked if I wanted to be staff as part of the art side (Haoh liked my stuff ^^). Closest thing I'll ever get to one of my life-dreams.

Yeah, I wanted to work for GameFan back when I was young. Then again I bet a lot of us did.

[Jetman]

Personally, I find it hilarious because I can remember when I was younger, looking at the portrait for Skid and wondering if it was actually based on someone, because with him and E. Storm, that'd make two fearsome mullets in one magazine. Pretty damn funny to find that they were written by the same guy all along.

I know.

Someone needs to go dig through some old issues and post quotes from Viewpoints with Goo, E-Storm, etc. reviewing the same game so we can make fun of this foolishness even more.I would but my old issues are rotting away in my parents garage where I left them eons ago.

[haohmaru]

Which further proves my theory that Germans love Dave Halverson.

Seriously, the man is a walking asshole.

haoh = German
haoh = no love for Halvy.

[Dyne]

After I left GameFan and started Dimension Publishing with Talko and Brody, Halverson sued Dimension when we came out with a competing publication (PS-X, later PSExtreme) and part of the suit was that we had stolen RGB screen capture technology owned by GameFan -- not any of their hardware -- no, we stole the very concept of grabbing screen shots in RGB.

oddly enough this isnt the first time ive heard this. did you guys mention it in your mag? cant remember where i first read it.

[adol]

Okay, I have a GameGo! related question. What happened that got Fury fired from the mag before it went to press?

[Mzo]

haoh = German
haoh = no love for Halvy.

IBTN

[Melf]

E. Storm was definitely Halverson. The full name was Ernest Storm, made from a combination of Ernest Evans and Alien Storm (or Nova Storm, I forget which Storm game it was).

Wasn't Halverson also the Postmeister?

[djpubba]

And this just makes me want to vomit. Halverson didnt win the law suit did he?

It was settled out of court and I believe there was an NDA clause I signed preventing me from disclosing the details of the settlement.

However I can talk about the stuff which anyone we were talking to at the time would have heard. There was more than just the RGB screen shot issue. From what I understood from being around while this was happening, there was a contract between GameFan and Talko that had two parts. Part one was that Talko would continue to write for GameFan after he left (the sports section) and they would pay him an agreed upon amount for his work. Part two was that he wouldn't compete with GameFan. Well, it wasn't long before Talko said he wasn't getting paid for his work so he considered the contract broken and he was free to compete with GameFan. So we made PS-X. GameFan sued him and there was a settlement, the details of which I cannot speak. As anyone can see, however, Dimension continued producing PS-X (renamed PSExtreme because of a threatened suit from Ziff Davis) and we merrily continued grabbing screen shots in RGB.

Wasn't Halverson also the Postmeister?

Yes, most of the time, but I recall that different people would write the Posty replies, depending on who knew the best answer. So Postmeister wasn't just one person. And yes, there were occasionally times when both the questions and answers were written by the Postmeister. But in fairness, that didn't happen at GameFan as much as at some *other*, *cough*, magazines I worked on.

[Jetman]

It was settled out of court and I believe there was an NDA clause I signed preventing me from disclosing the details of the settlement.

However I can talk about the stuff which anyone we were talking to at the time would have heard. There was more than just the RGB screen shot issue. From what I understood from being around while this was happening, there was a contract between GameFan and Talko that had two parts. Part one was that Talko would continue to write for GameFan after he left (the sports section) and they would pay him an agreed upon amount for his work. Part two was that he wouldn't compete with GameFan. Well, it wasn't long before Talko said he wasn't getting paid for his work so he considered the contract broken and he was free to compete with GameFan. So we made PS-X. GameFan sued him and there was a settlement, the details of which I cannot speak. As anyone can see, however, Dimension continued producing PS-X (renamed PSExtreme because of a threatened suit from Ziff Davis) and we merrily continued grabbing screen shots in RGB.

Yes, most of the time, but I recall that different people would write the Posty replies, depending on who knew the best answer. So Postmeister wasn't just one person. And yes, there were occasionally times when both the questions and answers were written by the Postmeister. But in fairness, that didn't happen at GameFan as much as at some *other*, *cough*, magazines I worked on.

Why am I surprised? Well, my perceptions are shattered. I feel the same way I did when I first learned that Santa Claus wasnt real